Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio / [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand] (a book)

 

Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio / [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand] (2026). Book cover design: Timo Numminen. 

Anna-Liisa Hämäläinen: Riitta Nelimarkka: hiekanjyvässä kallio/ [A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand]. 368 pages. Hard cover. EAN 9789528503309. Docendo, 19 March 2026.

DOCENDO OFFICIAL: "Riitta Nelimarkka – A Bedrock Within a Grain of Sand. The story of an uncompromising artist’s growth.

Riitta Nelimarkka’s biography recounts the journey of a multi-talented child from a Munkkiniemi family into a distinctive artist—a person for whom freedom, family, and love are paramount.

Professor Riitta Nelimarkka’s art radiates glowing colors and infectious joy. She is one of the most versatile and renowned contemporary Finnish artists.

Born in Helsinki in 1948, Nelimarkka is the granddaughter of the painter Eero Nelimarkka and the daughter of the inventor and engineer Antti Nelimarkka. Although she could have become a pianist, she dedicated her life to the visual arts instead. Nelimarkka achieved her breakthrough with her animated films Sammon tarina (The Story of the Sampo) and Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers). Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and festivals—both in Finland and abroad—as well as at Bonga Castle in Loviisa, a venue dedicated to her art.

The biography also reveals the person behind the artworks, sharing both the joys and sorrows of her life."

AA: Riitta Nelimarkka is a master of Finnish animation and a pathbreaker with inspired works such as Sammon tarina I-VI (FI 1972-1974), Piispa Henrik ja Lalli (1975), Seitsemän veljestä (FI 1979), Bagatelles 1-13 (1984), directed together with her husband Jaakko Seeck, based on Nelimarkka's delightful watercolours, animated via the cutout method.

Seitsemän veljestä, a foundational work in Finnish literature, has not been much filmed. There is only one live action theatrical movie (Wilho Ilmari, 1939) plus teleplays, such as Jouko Turkka's controversial tv series in 12 episodes (1989). Riitta Nelimarkka distinction is in capturing delightfully Kivi's sense of humour and fantasy and his feeling for nature. Hers is a work of lasting value.

However, animation is but a fraction in Nelimarkka's incredible creativity. She is a painter, sculptor, photographer, printmaker, textile artist and art book creator. In moving images, her interests include musical videos and documentaries. She has published dozens of books. Her hundreds of exhibitions range from Soul to Doha and from Los Angeles to Lima. Her specialties include large-format series of tapestries, charcoal works, serigraphies, wool reliefs and photomontages. 

An iconoclast, an irreverent dissident, always finding new angles. This book is a breathtaking survey about a restless soul. On pages 333-339 there is a curriculum vitae. It is a good place to start studying the book, which is a biography (written in the third person) but transparently also a quasi-autobiography and even an anti-biography. It is a story of an artist's life which is inseparably also a story of a family. Riitta's grandfather Eero Nelimarkka was a model in combining artistic talent and a solid business sense. They can come into conflict, but the conflict can turn into a source of creativity and productivity.

Hiekanjyvässä kallio is a solid and abundant contribution to the literature of (Finnish) animation and art. A story of an amazing life. Well illustrated, it gives a sense of Nelimarkka's colourful world and imagery.

In Riitta Nelimarkka's life, truth is stranger than fiction, yet again.